Mount Wudang Scenery & Culture

2013-12-30
Ada
Sights
Shiyan City
4211

Wudang school is generally recognized at home and abroad. As for its deriving place Mount Wudang, there are lots of places worth exploring. Wudang Mountain consists of a small mountain range in the northwestern part of Hubei Province of China, just to the south of the city of Shiyan. Mount Wudang covers an area of 321 square kilometers wide, with very rich beautiful sceneries and culture relics. The main tourist resorts include: three ponds, nine springs, nine wells, nine platforms, ten pools, ten stones, eleven caves, thirty six cliffs and seventy two peaks, all of them compose incomparable Chinese traditional mount-water drawings. At any time of the year, tourists can enjoy its wonderful natural scenery.

The tallest peak is Tianzhu Peak at 1612 meters above sea level, which is where Golden Hall Temple is situated. Wudang mountain is home to a famous complex of Taoist temples and monasteries which are especially associated with the god Zhenwu. As a counterpart to the buddhist Shaolin Monastery, Wudang is renowned for the practice of Chinese martial arts.

It is heard the Taoism deity Zhenwu practiced alchemitry here and succeeded in possessing Golden Elixir at last. Later his body changed into brilliant light and disappeared. Besides Taoism alchemitry, Mount Wudang is the birthplace of Wudang school Kung Fu (martial arts). The name of Wudang in Chinese characters has the meaning “Deserve nothing when there is no genuine Kung Fu”----Here the genuine Kung Fu means the good foundation of internal Kung Fu (Inner Qigong or initial phase of alchemitry) upon which the martial arts build up to deserve enduring test.

Besides the beautiful sceneries, the old Taoism buildings constructed over a long span of ancient Chinese dynasties deserve the calling of construction miracle in the whole world. Through the ages, the palace still presents its glamour and grandiosity. The most famous Taoist temple on Mount Wudang is Nanyan Gong (Nanyan Temple), which is entirely built of rock from the cliff wall behind it - it perches on a rounded cliff face (perhaps made more round by the temple's builders during its constuction).

Nanyan Gong is supposed to be the place where the mythical warrior-emperor, Xuanwu/ Zhenwu is supposed to have entered Taoist "nirvana", after which he flies to heaven as an immortal. Wudang Kung Fu, founded by master Zhang Sanfeng, gets an equal status as Shaolin Kung Fu in China. Such Kung Fu arts emphasizes the inner Kung Fu training (alchemitry) and advocates to launch attack later and overcoming hardness with softness. So, its uniqueness set itself a very different school in so many Kung Fu schools in China history.

Since modern-day Chinese people still revere their ancestors, Mount Wudang is an especially popular tourist site among the Chinese, including visiting Chinese expats, just as it is increasingly popular with foreign tourists in search of the beauty, peace and harmony that Mount Wudang still offers. Like many other majestic mountain ranges in China, Mount Wudang, with its many peaks, gullies, ravines, streams, and waterfalls - but also with its quiet seclusion - is a place of rare beauty, worthy of a visit by any nature lover.